Alex Trelinski
A FORMER mayor of Lliber, Jose Mas, has been convicted of fraud over licences granted to the building of 290 illegal villas.
The properties were marketed at between €300,000 to €500,000 to United Kingdom and European buyers.
Construction took place in the Marina Alta region town between 1999 and 2003 on land which was classified as ‘non-developable’.
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Prospective purchasers were given assurances that there would be no problems, but were left high and dry as builders ‘vanished’ before everything was finished.
A British pensioner couple said in 2009 that they had to fork out an extra €20,000 to get their villa completed only to discover there was no water or electricity connection.
It was all topped off by them finding out that they held an illegal licence from the local council produced by the municipal architect, Amador Signes, who got paid to execute the fraud.
Building licences were granted to non-Spaniards to have their dream homes constructed with the help of bogus reports approved by plenary meetings of Lliber council.
The Alicante Provincial Court said many of those affected by the scam ‘would not have bought land and had homes built if they had known about the difficulties and illegalities regarding construction’.
Jose Mas was found guilty of fraud along with Amador Signes and three developers.
They were each given two-year prison terms which they will not serve as they were first offences.
A mitigating factor in a ‘lowish’ sentence from the court was the ‘undue delay’ in bringing the case to trial which eventually happened in May.
It stated that dozens of purchasers from the UK and other countries were deceived over permission to build the villas.
Mas and Signes were also fined €1,800 each for the crime of urban prevarication.
Both were also barred from holding any roles for three years to do with public administration management, construction and architecture.
Two other developers were acquitted of fraud and urban prevarication.
Also cleared of urban prevarication were three councillors at the time of illegal approval being granted including the current Lliber mayor, Jose Juan Reus.
Two ex-councillors died before the matter was finally resolved after initial arrests of some of those accused- way back in 2009.
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